The present invention relates to the field of graphical modeling applications, and, more particularly, to simplifying the creation of user-defined custom elements for use in a graphical modeling application.
Graphical modeling applications are popular tools for creating semantic models that are used across a wide variety of disciplines. Generally, a graphical modeling application includes a multitude of static graphical elements, objects and relationships that a user can manipulate when creating a semantic model. Through continued use of the graphical modeling application, users often realize that they are repeatedly creating certain configurations of static graphical elements.
To eliminate this repetitive process, graphical modeling applications often provide a mechanism for the user to save the selected elements as a custom element. However, the provided mechanisms are generally cumbersome and require the user to understand how to create the custom element using an application programming interface (API). Further, the user-defined custom element created by current mechanisms is static and unable to be shared among other users without repeating the creation process.
Attempts have been made to improve the process by which a user can define custom elements, such as storing the custom element as a template of the graphical modeling application. Current processes, however, still lack simplicity and fail to capture the semantic content of the element. That is, the graphical illustration of the custom element is captured without the additional data contained within the static graphical elements.